


third movement; the truth

by i_was_human



Series: D.Min Week 2021 [6]
Category: Lost in Translation (Webcomic)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hetaoni Fusion, Angst, Blood, Character Death, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Memory Loss, No Beta, Time Loop
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-24
Updated: 2021-02-24
Packaged: 2021-03-19 09:14:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29624025
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/i_was_human/pseuds/i_was_human
Summary: Time loops again and again and again, and as it passes on, Dongho grows ever-more jaded.There's no happy endings here.
Relationships: Kang Dongho | D.Min & Lee Minsoo
Series: D.Min Week 2021 [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2167335
Comments: 1
Kudos: 5





	third movement; the truth

_**i.** _

"Trust me," Minsoo breathes, gripping Dongho's hands as tightly as he can. "We'll get out. I just need you to trust me."

 _"I should be saying this to you,"_ Dongho nearly screams, _"I should be telling you to trust me, I should be taking charge, I should be responsible-"_

but he says nothing. 

He says nothing, and so Minsoo smiles, wry and small, and when he stands, Dongho can almost pretend this isn't the same person he saw grip Minsung's body and cry, can almost pretend this isn't the same person who watched Daehyun get sliced in half, can almost _pretend pretend pretend-_

"When I give the signal, run, okay?"

He should've fought.

Dongho- Dongho froze that first time, that first time where Jaewon got skewered and everyone scattered, that first time when blood splattered over the floor and everyone ran and _died_ -

he froze.

He froze, and he freezes now, freezes as Minsoo smiles with tears rolling down his cheeks and loops the ribbon in his hair ( _daehyun's, it was daehyun's, minsoo pulled it off his cooling body_ ) around his wrist, tying a small bow and letting the rest hang loose.

"I love you, you know?"

Minsoo's talking like he's saying goodbye.

Minsoo's- Minsoo's acting like he's going to die, but he _can't_ die, because SA1NT are all dead and Jaewon and Daehyun are dead and if Minsoo dies, Dongho loses _everything_ -

Minsoo presses their foreheads together for a brief moment, and Dongho can _see_ the fear in his eyes, can _see_ how afraid he is to die, but he's going through with this anyways, and-

why?

"Trust me, okay?"

And with that, Minsoo turns and runs and Dongho screams, as he always does, a second too late-

" _Wait_!"

Minsoo doesn't turn back.

Minsoo doesn't turn back, and so Dongho forces himself up on numb legs, the key clutched tightly in his grasp, and he stumbles towards the door, looking back just in time to see Minsoo get run through-

and their eyes meet.

And Minsoo looks at him, tears and blood streaming down his face, and he-

and he _smiles_.

Mouths "I love you", even as the light leaves his eyes.

And Dongho _runs_ , runs as fast and as far as he can until he slips on the cobble, and it's raining, big fat droplets washing the blood and the gore from his skin, and the monsters come and ask if he wants to try again, and he accepts, because _how can he not_?

There's never been a choice, here.

_**ii.** _

He tries again.

He tries again, and Minsoo dies first this time, blood and gore splattered over the wall, and Dongho grabs Minsung and tosses him over his shoulder and _runs_ , runs so fast and so far that he hopes and fucking prays that Minsung can't see the tears streaming down his cheeks.

He bandages Minsung's leg with a spare bedsheet, rips a strip off to make a headband for himself, and Minsung looks at him and asks _how the fuck he's so calm_ when everything just happened, and Dongho doesn't know how to say that in the last time, he watched Kyunghun slowly waste away from infection and starvation, and so he says nothing.

Nimble fingers do good work, and he ties the make-shift bandage into a little bow, the faintest of smiles creeping onto his lips at the sight of his handiwork. It looks like-

( _looks like ribbons, looks like daehyun's ribbon tied around his wrist, dark flecks of blood coming off when he scrubs it under the faucet-_ )

-some kind of new-age stage uniform, and he tells Minsung as much.

Minsung laughs, worries the bedsheet between his fingers, and Dongho sighs, leaning back against the bed as his gaze drifts to the roof.

Hopefully they don't stay long enough for infection to set in. 

(hopefully he gets to try again, _rewindrewindrewind_ because life isn't worth living without minsoo-)

Minsung sighs a bit, gaze drifting to the floor, and for a moment, Dongho's reminded of a story Minsoo told him, reminded of the way Minsoo looked, staring at his brother's corpse with dull eyes and blood-stained hands, and it doesn't get any easier, holding conversations with a dead man walking, but he likes to imagine it will.

Doesn't like to imagine it, really, but as with most things, he doesn't get much of a say.

"He's dead," Minsung croaks, tears finally seeping into his voice, and Dongho nods, pick-pick-picking at the dried blood underneath his fingernails.

Minsoo is-

dead, for now.

Everyone is _dead-for-now_ , because all of this is a puzzle, and all of it is reversible, and that, more than anything, Dongho clings to, because _dead-for-now_ is a lot better than _dead,_ full-stop, end of story, and Dongho _cannot_ handle a full-stop right now, and so he pulls out the book and rewinds time.

_**iv.** _

Jaewon shrugs off his jacket and tears off a strip of cloth, pouring a cup of water over his open wound before wrapping it up, and Dongho doesn't have the heart to tell him that that water isn't clean, never has been clean, and it's just going to kill him, someday, because _sooner_ has never been a preferable death to _later_ , and he'd like to push _later_ as far away as he can.

The bathroom's grimy again - no trace of the cleaning Minsoo insisted they do - and Dongho pulls Jaewon closer by his good leg, taking the ruined jacket from his hands and wrapping it around the bloody wound with steady hands.

Always steady.

Jaewon bites his lip as Dongho ties the fabric, a low hiss escaping his lips, and Dongho nearly tells him to be quiet - _"shut the fuck up"_ sitting on the tip of his tongue - before he remembers this isn't the end-all-be-all, there isn't an immediate consequence for noise, and Jaewon is not him, Jaewon is not hard and cold, Jaewon is- Jaewon is small and weak and _so, so scared_ , and so Dongho lets him hiss and moan as he ties up his wound, because it might be the last bit of excess sound he'll be afforded for some time.

He lets go of the fabric, and Jaewon slumps against the wall, tears cutting through the grime on his cheeks, and Dongho nearly scolds him once more for wasting water, but they're something to focus on in the dark room, so he says nothing.

One of the monsters passes by while they wait, the accompanying inhuman screams never ceasing to be disturbing, and as Jaewon covers his mouth with one hand, Dongho lets his head rest against the dirty tile, and he thinks.

He thinks, and he hears screaming and sobs and explosions and _wails_ and he thinks, blood-stained fingers wandering over the grimy tile in an attempt to find that all-encompassing book, because _stop-rewind-restart,_ this isn't the beginning he wanted, and he has infinite lives, so why not reset?

Jaewon looks at him, then, watches as he gashes his index finger against a jagged piece of metal, and he asks, and he worries, and Dongho flips open the book and turns to the smeared clock and rewinds time again.

_**xii.** _

It is _so easy_ for Youngjoon to die.

The man's a fucking martyr - this, Dongho knows _painfully_ well - and it doesn't help that he fancies himself a fucking Jeanne d' Arc, always charging in on his own to save whoever needs saving (usually daehyun) and _every fucking time_ he dies, and Dongho is-

tired.

But Youngjoon is on his team, and Youngjoon refuses to listen to reason, and so Dongho sticks directly with him to try and control him. Minimize the damage, as it were.

They're wandering the halls with none dead, and Youngjoon's limping a bit from where he slipped down the stairs, but it's all fine. Dongho can hear the phantom screams of people who were _dead-back-then_ but nobody is dead right now, and so the phantom screams are just that.

Phantoms.

A combination of the past and Dongho's fucked-up brain, a combination of regret and grief and trauma and whatever dark magic this house throws in for good measure, but it doesn't matter, because right now they're nine for nine, and that's how he'd like it to _fucking stay_.

Youngjoon hesitates for a moment, turns back to look at him, and Dongho arches a questioning brow, a silent query in his eyes - _"what do you need, and can it wait?"_

Only this Youngjoon can't read those silent movements, and so he asks directly - "Daehyun-ah says you've been acting weird, and I wanted to know if everything's okay?"

His voice lilts up a bit at the end, putting a bit of innocence into something _so bleak_ , and Dongho smiles, dark and wry and _so, so weary_.

"You can answer that as well as I can."

Youngjoon opens his mouth to protest, but then a monster comes skidding around the wall, and they ready to fight, and Youngjoon dies again because Youngjoon _always fucking dies_ and so Dongho yanks out his book and turns back time again, his blood starting to create a dried layer on the page.

_**xxxviii.**_

Pushed the right way, Taeseok can become a valuable ally.

Of course, this pushing always involves Hyunjin's death, so Dongho generally doesn't go that route. Minimizing collateral damage and all that - he has to go nine for nine.

And yet.

And yet, there are some times where he snaps.

Take now, for instance.

"Hyung!" Minsoo shrieks, hurling himself against the cage again and again as if his willpower alone can bend solid metal. "Hyung, let me out, let _us_ out, you don't know what you're _doing_ -"

Dongho stares at him for a moment, taking everything in - and this isn't _his_ Minsoo, not wholly (though what is his minsoo, anymore?) - but it's similar enough, despite this Minsoo being clean and unharmed and _so achingly naive_. It's similar enough that he can trick himself for a moment, and so he smiles, a bitter, sharp sort of nostalgia washing over him in the best way it can. 

"I know what I'm doing, Minsoo-yah."

He tosses the key in the air a few times before pocketing it, and Taeseok stares at him, dark eyes blank and dull, and Dongho smiles at him, then - sharp and wry and venomous - but Taeseok doesn't bite.

Perhaps he's become a bit of a nihilist.

There's a sort of defeatism that comes with the realization that the memories of every person you've ever known and loved are slowly seeping out of your brain with each reset, everything left forgotten in exchange for _puzzlespatternspossibilities_ , and Dongho supposes he's turning into the puppetmaster that people always wanted him to be.

He's getting stronger.

He's getting stronger, and that's what counts.

Of course, Taeseok dies, and the others all die, and so Dongho bites his thumb and rewinds time once more, because death is never permanent in this mansion, not as long as he's alive to stop it.

What a fool he's become.

_**lix.**_

He can't explain why, but seeing Daehyun in pain always hurts the worst.

Perhaps it's a vestige of the person he used to be - the person he used to be before life became patterns and numbers and past actions and predictions - but there's a distant buried part of him that looks at Daehyun and says _this is my boy_ , and this part Dongho trusts.

Still, for whatever reason it is, seeing Daehyun hurt hurts the most, and Daehyun hurts _so much_ and _so often_ and Dongho _aches_ for him, aches for the blond-haired boy with the magic thrumming under his skin and hundreds of responsibilities he never asked for weighing on his shoulders.

Daehyun's died from his magic before, died from overload or from casting too many spells, and Daehyun's never been able to use his magic before, and Daehyun's magic is the greatest blessing and curse in this entire fucking mansion, and Dongho just wants him to be _normal_.

He just.

Daehyun, like Youngjoon, is a martyr, but the mansion _actively enables this_ in a way Dongho _bitterly_ resents. The mansion- the mansion _tries_ to make things harder, it _tries_ to kill the people Dongho loves most, and try as he might, Daehyun is _so, so hard_ to stop loving.

Magic lumps here and there, a few books placed in the right places, and Daehyun's trying to blow open the front door with the magic coursing through his veins, and Dongho begs him to stop, they all do, but Daehyun smiles and laughs a bit, high and free and _so, so scared_ , and he snaps his fingers-

and the front door doesn't break.

Daehyun does.

Dongho watches as the boy that was once his maknae dissolves on the ground, bits of blood and tissue splattering against his feet, and the others shriek and scream and sob, and Dongho, as blasé as ever, simply pulls out his book and rewinds time.

There's a bloody path on the page, now.

He tries not to think about that.

_**lxxi.** _

Unlike Taeseok, Hyunjin doesn't break, he cracks.

It's a smaller thing - something more limited to quiet moments of reflection and recovery - but Dongho's seen him sob over Taeseok's body, seen him claw at his hair when they're taking a break, seen him _scrub-scrub-scrub_ his hands even after his friends' blood is long gone, and so he thinks.

Hyunjin is strong, he knows this - there's a reason Minsoo once jokingly called him the lion - but what's the upper limit to that?

(he fears there's no upper limit, and _that scares him._

hyunjin can _push-push-push_ indefinitely, every problem falling to the wayside in favor of _just getting out_ , and it serves him _so well_ in here, but it'll never work for outside.

outside.

dongho's beginning to doubt that exists.)

Still, Hyunjin is useful. The most of any of them, really, given Minsung's tendency to shut down and Minsoo's loose-cannon tendencies. He can wrangle the young ones, stop the older ones from doing something stupid, can be counted on to not crumble under pressure-

it's nice.

From a purely utilitarian standpoint, he's nice. 

He's nice, and he lives, and that can usually be relied upon, which is what makes his deaths all the more loop-wrecking.

Taeseok screams as Hyunjin falls to the ground, the watermelon-haired man's blood splattering over his shoes, and Dongho sighs, steps back, bites his thumb and rewinds.

Loops are harder without Hyunjin, after all, and he'd like to get the most optimal scenario he can.

_**ciii.** _

"Do you ever think you're going insane?"

Dongho thinks for a moment, shrugs - he _knows_ he's gone insane - and tips his head back, staring up at the grimy ceiling tiles with the sickening pattern he's long-since memorized. "I know I'm insane, Kyunghun."

Kyunghun sighs at that, drumming his fingers along the rim of the toilet, and Dongho shrugs, expression carefully blank. It's a balancing game, much like everything is - he has to choose what to say and what to hide - but from the looks of it, Kyunghun knows everything.

That's the problem with Kyunghun.

He always knows everything.

And it's fucking hilarious that they're having this conversation in a grimy bathroom after everyone's dead and Kyunghun's bleeding out from two slashed Achilles tendons, or maybe it's not, but Dongho's developed an appreciation for macabre humor, and so they are.

"Have you talked to anyone?"

"What, like a therapist?"

Dongho exhales, taps a melody he doesn't quite recognize against the tub. "There aren't exactly any therapists inside this mansion, Kyunghun."

"Then talk to me."

Kyunghun shrugs, weak and defeated and _so, so tired_. "'s not like I'm goin' anywhere."

And so he does.

He talks until his throat aches and fingers still, talks until his eyes burn and his head pounds and Kyunghun's long-dead, a pool of his own blood pooling around his pants, and only then, only then does he reset.

It feels wrong, somehow, to waste the odd gift Kyunghun gave him - that of a listening ear.

_**cxx.** _

On the last loop, things change.

Some girls Dongho doesn't recognize come into the mansion - _candy? sugar?_ \- and Daehyun's excited, but all Dongho can think is how there's now twelve and the hands of the clock are _tick-tick-tick_ ing down. 

They kill some monsters and manage not to lose anybody, and they make it through to the clock room before they're swarmed, because of course they are.

Twelve hands to the clock.

Twelve bodies to fill them.

And so this time, unlike the first time, Dongho stands his ground. He stands his ground and tells everyone to run, run while they still can, and he has nothing against the monsters but a chair and his fists, but he'll go fighting to the bitter end.

Even if it's for people he only knows in the mansion and in the haziest flickers of memories of a happier time, he'll fight to the end. 

It's what Minsoo did for him, after all.

He dies there, then, in the clock room, lying in a pool of his own blood while the mansion crumbles, and as his last bit of consciousness escapes him, all he can think is _finally_ _._

 _Finally, he can see his Minsoo again_.

**_._ **

"What...?"

Minsoo stares at the police officer, his heart thudding to his feet in an instant. "What do you _mean_ , they didn't find anything?"

"We didn't find your friend's body," the man replies, reaching up to scratch the back of his neck. "In fact, we didn't find any mansion at all."

"But- he-"

"Look, I get how it is. A bunch of kids wanna go out and get drunk, and they see some shit, and then they call the cops. I've heard this before."

"Wh- _no, you're not listening_! My hyung is _alive_ in there, you have to go find him-"

He blinks, and there's a gentle whisper on the breeze, the phantom feeling of fingertips brushing his cheeks-

( _"thank you, minsoo-"_ )

-and in that moment, he knows Dongho's well and truly gone.

(and in that moment, he breaks down and cries.)

**Author's Note:**

> this was written for day six of d.min week 2021! prompt: trust
> 
> songs i listened to while writing:  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avNU4WyAD9w  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0jeWxgE4DN8  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Paih7bcXtI  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vx1tjfxNXNY (fic namer)  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6DDA1cS1fRA  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4O_rRrrPwE
> 
> i hope you liked this fic! if you did, please leave a comment, it would make me very happy :D
> 
> [twit](https://twitter.com/i_was_human_) | [lit fic discord!](https://discord.gg/CNunB74)


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